Pirate Bay founder sentenced for hacking and fraud

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A founder of the popular file-sharing website Pirate Bay who was arrested in Cambodia under an international warrant was convicted in Sweden on Thursday of hacking and fraud and given a two-year prison sentence.

The Nacka District Court in Stockholm said 28-year-old Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, who is currently serving a one-year sentence for copyright violation, was found guilty of hacking into a company that handles sensitive information for Sweden’s police force, the country’s tax authority, and Nordic banking group Nordea AB. The court also convicted him of fraud and attempted fraud for stealing money from an account in Denmark and trying to illegally transfer euros 654,000 ($863,000) of money in European accounts.

Another Swede, Mathias Gustafsson, age 36, was found guilty of hacking and was placed on probation. It was not immediately clear if they would appeal.

“The data intrusion has been very extensive and technically advanced,” the court said in its ruling.

The men denied wrongdoing, claiming their computers were used remotely by others, but computer forensic experts told the court they found evidence that the two men were behind the hacking.